Gary Neville\u2019s prominence in British football and media has been accompanied by a public life beyond the pitch. The former Manchester United defender has had a varied post-playing career: a failed managerial stint at Valencia, co-ownership of Salford City, work as a property developer in Manchester and an open endorsement of the Labour party.<\/p>\n
It is Neville\u2019s political commentary that sparked a recent escalation. In the wake of an attack on a Manchester synagogue earlier this month, Neville posted a video on social media during which he blamed “angry, middle-aged, white men” for engendering division in the U.K. and setting the stage for events such as those that unfolded on Oct. 2. Those remarks provoked debate and prompted some calls for his sacking from Sky Sports.<\/p>\n
The controversy surfaced at Salford\u2019s Moor Lane on Saturday. During Salford\u2019s 1\u20130 victory over Oldham Athletic, two individuals ran onto the pitch and attempted to plant a flag on the centre circle. Three people were arrested at Moor Lane that day in what authorities described as a supposed protest against the club\u2019s co-owner.<\/p>\n
Far-right political party Britain First claimed responsibility, saying they “teamed up with local Salford patriots” to protest against the “treachery of Gary Neville.” The protesters also wore clothing bearing the slogan “Gary Neville is a traitor.” Organisers used a flag during the pitch invasion.<\/p>\n
Neville has argued publicly that symbols such as the Union Jack have been exploited by the far-right. In his social media post from Oct. 5 he said: “I love my country, I love Manchester, I love England,” and added, “But I\u2019ve been building in this city for 15\u201320 years and nobody has put a Union Jack flag up, so why do you need to put one up now?”<\/p>\n
The episode at Moor Lane underlines how political statements by high-profile figures can spill into the sporting arena and provoke direct action from groups on both sides of the debate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gary Neville faced protests at Salford after comments on politics and the Union Jack’s meaning. Oct.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3902,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1083,969],"tags":[1158,1159],"class_list":["post-3903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-man-utd","category-premier-league","tag-gary-neville","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}